Reflections on A San Francisco Collective

AC Reflections
By Salim

INTRODUCTION
Prison gives one ample time to reflect and re-examine what one has done in life. I have found myself thinking a lot about political organizing, specifically my efforts in the Autonomous Collective (AC) which was a libertarian socialist group based in San Francisco which organized around social issues, most notably housing and persued tactics based on autonomy and direct action. I am not sure where to begin this discussion on the AC I suppose the best place to start would be on the theory behind my motivations in starting the AC in October of 2003.
Having spent some time in Washington, DC as a human rights lobbyist for Muslim groups I realized how difficult, well impossible it is to get humanitarian principles, beyond those originally enshrined in the US Constitution. There are many reasons for this. For one is that the ability to expand rights beyond those giving freedom to capitalism is nearly impossible. Economic rights are not thought of as being applicable in the the American system being based on the principle of “each according to their ability” the notion that people are made more able by conditions in society more then others has no credence to those that the majority of whom are from a priviledged background. Secondly, is the structural road block to change built into the US political system which was created with an inherant bias against change in it. The US system was created to protect an elite white slave and land owning minority. The ability to amend the Constitution is difficult due to those need to preserve the elite minority the US system was created this way because it was created as an economic union not a union based on idealism outside the capitalist philosophy of the day of its creation. Thus, it reflects an inability to modernize and change with the times. In fact change has only come in the form of who has access to becoming a member of the ruling class, and there have only been two major changes: the abolition of slavery (which took a major civil war to bring about), and giving womyn the vote. Yet, both descendants of slaves and womyn as a whole do not have parity with white males in present day American society. Some argue that by making structural reforms to the American political system that change could happen politically in a controlled manner. For example the implementation of campaign reform, or proportional representation. In both of these cases the dominant political factions would still be able to maintain power since they already have established bases of power and there is no reform aimed at breaking down these power bases. I would actually argue that the only sound “reformist” agenda would be the outright banning of political factions with all candidates receiving equal funding from a communal campaign fund, but this would still leave the system in tact and based on the original premises of the founding fathers and the dominant capitalist ideology of their day. So how would one go about getting past a capitalism based on 300 year old ideas? Should one be coerced into living in an outdated capitalist society? Obviously the concept of democratic reform is impossible if your goal is the elimination of an outdated and un-natural capitalism. A post capitalist society is needed and that society can not be created out of a system which is simply an extension of regal governance—governments based on the monarchist parlimentarian system-- rather then populist free will.
I hold that what people need is not participation in the dominant system, a system you are coerced into against your will. I hold that what is needed is autonomy from the regal governance system and it’s socio-economic capitalist system. Many people have argued that we need to create a socialist state to replace the capitalist state that exists. I question the notion of “states”. What is a state? What is meant when one syas a state? Undoubtedly there are many meanings to the term state even in a totally anarchist topography there are many states. For me the “state” in political discourse is a “centralized and hierarchically based system of order” as such power is condensed and vertically oriented in a loci out of this loci orders our sent to the lesser organs of the shared commonality of the body politic. A socialist state is that envisioned by classical Marxist-Leninist where a vanguard in the form of a political party rule over a state and a small oligarchy of party bosses rule over the party. In a “capitalist state” a small group of wealthy industrialists determine policy within a system of checks and balances aimed at maintaining a fair market for a small number of capitalist exploiters that are not limited by race, gender, sexual orientation or background at least in theory. In both of these states power resides at a high level of government known as the Federal level.
I formally reject the “state” to discuss this rejection as an anti-capitalist it is best illuminated by discussing the statist socialist perspective as espoused by the Marxist-Leninist tendency or what I call authoritarian Marxism exemplified by Leninists such as Stalinists, Trotskyites and Maoists. I do not include all Marxists in this tendency there are many valuable forms of libertarian Marxists. I am willing to work with in coalition. The statist socialist system came to being out of the Russian Coup d’etat by the Bolsheviks of the Popular February Revolution of 1917, precursed by the 1905 uprising. The initial Russian revolution was a Constitutionalist revolution aimed at the elimination of the Czarist regime. The Bolsheviks played a minor role in the February revolution confining themselves to labor agitation. After the success of the February revolution Lenin returned from exile in Switzerland through the aid of the German regime which thought that the radical Communists would aid in ending Russian involvement in WWI. OF the many socialist tendencies at work in Russia it would be the Bolsheviks to win out in the end by taking over the multi-party and diverse workers soviets. The soviets were not created by the Bolsheviks but were created through a synergy of socialist tendencies from libertarian (anarchist) to authoritarian (Menshivik/Bolshevik). I would argue that the only times the socialists have been an effective force is when this multi-party or ideological synergy has been permitted to function freely. The soviets existed as a dual power entity, that is it was an independent or autonomous structure composed from the grass roots which served the needs of the people outside the apparatus of the Constutionalist state (it existed during the 1905 uprising as well). The soviets were comprised of workers and believed in “worker control”. In fact Lenin initially backed this idea and the soviet refrain “all power to the soviets”. Only later, after the overthrow of multi-party soviets, taking power away from the soviets and centering it in the Politburo. The Bolsheviks managed to seize power over the soviets so that only Bolsheviks could be elected and overthrow the Constitutionalist government in the October Revolution which was actually a coup d’etat. Subsequent to that all political parties beside the Bolshevik Communist party were eliminated and all power dissipated fro the original sense of the soviets – democratic local worker controlled councils—to a centralized hierarchical Politboro of the Communist Party elite. However, the revolution was not won by the Bolsheviks, the revolution was won by the synergy of socialist opposition and reformist Constitutionalists. In that context the Soviets developed via the grass roots workers movements and protected the right s of workers while existing as a dual power institution and powerful enough for the Bolsheviks to take over and stage the “socialist” revolution of October. There were attempts by workers and peasants to regain control from the Communist party notably the Kronstadt Rebellion and the Anarchist Makhnovist rebellion in the Ukraine. However, the rebellions were overpowered by the central authority of the socialist state, which as history has shown collapsed under it’s own centralized corruption. Additionally the Bolsheviks attempted to dismantle the peasant communal farming systems, the Mirs, and replace it with forced collectivization. What is obvious is that pre-Bolshevik Soviets were successful. They were successful because they were democratic local worker controlled and autonomous. In the true sense of a Federation of Soviets where these soviets form a network of autonomous locals much can be achieved. A large central apparatus cannot manage an organic whole, the organic whole is best managed at the local level so it is the sense of a horizontal democratic co-effective community of soviets that the body politik should be organized and that is the mutually beneficial state that I espouse. [for a critique of Bolshevism see “The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism” by Bertrand Russell]
So one of the goals of the Autonomous Collective was to create a autonomous democratic “worker” controlled collective that in the sense of dual power had not seized power but did meet the needs of it’s participants and others outside the control of the centralized and capitalist based state.
Before proceeding to a discussion of some of the programs undertaken by our small collective I would like to discuss the issue of overthrowing the state compared to being autonomous from the state.
There are many people that view the conception of the Autonomous Zone and notion of autonomy as simply intellectual adventurism or even priviledged escapism, considering it a “lifestylist” remedy. Perhaps, this is true. For instance some believe that we must overthrow the state some, communists, believe it should be replaced by a socialist dictatorship, some anarchists believe the state should be overthrown and smashed in tutto. It is not that I think the state should not be replaced with local direct democracy but rather an issue about how can such a transition occur and in what context. For better or worse we, who live in industrialized western constitutional democracies do not live in totalitarian states, we do have legal means to change things but not the legal means to bring about revolutionary change. Obviously fighting the dominant system head on will not work, they have the full security apparatus of the state to crush us with, and as I am currently incarcerated I can tell you that it is a bit intimidating. I believe what we need are functioning pockets of our vision of society, a model for which others can emulate. In terms of the Temporary Autonomous Zones I have never experienced liberation more then I have during TAZs, even are limited successes in the AC has shown me how much creative energy people can release when they are freed fro the constraints of the capitalist society. It is my belief that with the maturation of Autonomous Zones we can develop programs institutions, functioning collectives based on “worker control” which will inspire rather then dictate to others on how a new community can be created based on the principles of libertarian socialism—no matter the intellectual heritage of the tendency: Marxists, Anarchist, Christian, whatever ad infinitum. Why worker control? It is just a term to identify those without power since we live in capitalist industrialized societies the people without power are known as the working class it is not necessarily an endorsement of industrialization and a technologically driven society. From the small autonomous pockets would develop networks and federations of “soviets” which would function as dual power institutions within the context of the constitutional nations the zones exist within’, until the masses through it’s integration with the Autonomous Soviets chose to do away with the state and it’s regal legacy of authoritarianism. Of course a mechanism for preventing another Bolshevik dictatorship from emerging would be necessary, as well it should be noted that I do envision that there will be many people that will choose to still live within a capitalist society, and this will necessitate at a certain level multi-lateral institutions to ensure peaceful co-existence between the libertarian socialist soviets and the capitalist states. Some may argue that the capitalist states will never let autonomous socialist zones exist in peace, this is a serious issue for contemplation. In the end I do believe over time the people of the capitalist states will choose libertarian socialism as long as multi-lateral institutions exist to ensure a set of basic rights within all communities. It should also be noted that even within the soviets with local autonomy there may be a great deal of diversity between different soviets this does not mean oppression would be allowed to exist in a local soviet but does mean that the local soviet would not be controlled by a superior governing hierarchical body.
I am sure there are many that would say this vision is naïve and actually based on a priviledge of living in a liberal society and perhaps it is and is a vision for building a socialist community in a liberal industrialized capitalist society, Others argue that socialism must be international in nature and cannot be implemented on a local or state by state paradigm. They would say that the capitalist rulers will always attack the socialist community and that total revolution is necessary including a party dictatorship. I disagree with this notion especially in the context of a society ruled by rights. Albeit there are no states that live up to their aspirations of being countries ruled by rights. However, there are some that do come closer then others and where an Autonomous Socialist community could be attempted. In North America this could occur in the multi-ethnic federation of Canada, and probably best attempted in the province of Manitoba with its social democratic government. Another province that may be of opportunity may be Quebec which itself is seeking autonomy from the dominant anglo-Canadian federal system.


ON THE AUTONOMOUS COLLECTIVE
The Autonomous Collective was not a developed “soviet” it was a small attempt at freeing a small number of people from the confines of the Capitalist system and de-commodify the individual and allow each of us to live to our full potentials. It was an attempt at planting a seed of liberation with the context of a liberal capitalist society of San Francisco. Our mission statement read:

"The Autonomous Collective (AC) works for permanent solutions to social injustice by establishing services and products based on autonomy from capitalism. We develop independent services such as Housing, Food Programs, Labor Collectives and other resources that are based on collectivism rather than capitalism. We are also based on the principle of ecological sustainability and biodiversity. We also work to permanently change sexism, racism, militarism. We are Queer Positive and against all forms of oppression. Part of our mission also is to engage in Direct Action against those forces which serve injustice."


We worked primarily on developing an anti-oppression consciousness, we opened abandoned buildings for housing (squats), we worked with community groups on food distribution, we developed a working practice of mutual aid, we integrated both work and ecology and embraced deep ecological values, we also had ongoing campaigns based on direct action. None of these things existed independently of one another rather they were a series of interwoven ideas forming the lattice of the organic collective. By discussing them in different aspects I am aiming at bringing out some of the meanings that each concept has as a focus of it’s quiddity.


ANTI-OPPRESSION
As a white male it is perhaps impossible for me to fully understand this issue, although I have encountered oppression such as being from a poor white trash background (when I was a in high school the FBI stormed our house looking for my father and some stolen money) and having directly experienced physical violence based on reactionary homophobia (I am a polyamorous lover with a bisexual orientation) still it is not a area that I feel particularly illuminated to discuss. So it is with my weakest understanding I discuss this issue and I am sure there are collective members that will continue to call me out on my own oppressive behaviours. However, as a collective, which is greater then the individual personalities that comprise it [no I don’t believe the whole is the sum of it’s parts], we were explicitly and actively an “anti-oppression” group.
So when we said we were an anti-oppression group what did we mean by using the term “anti-oppression”? By anti-oppression we believed in actively challenging privileges within our community such as white male privilege. What is a privilege? A privilege is a unequal relationship where an individual is given more benefits based on their race, economic background or other source of unequal power relationship between people. So what we sought was to actively challenge this disequilibrium. We worked on this issue through ongoing dialogue and consensus decision making processes.
To discuss this further I think it would be interesting to discuss the composition of the collective members. Typically, and I risk making generalizations based on the Anarchist scene of San Francisco, most collectives are white middle class college educated people. Our collective was not typical of this we had several African American members, all were from poor backgrounds, most had some college education, the majority were “queer” identified from homosexuals to bisexuals and with even some non-sexuals. We attempted gender parity our only elected office holder was a womyn [although she will be first to note that she didn’t always feel respected by the men, most notably by me and I accept responsibility for this we also had transgender members. A good part of us were “street punks” or “crusty punks” which was a great challenge in how other “activists” perceived us with many branding us “undesirable”. While at the same time we made mistakes as a collective in dealing with this issue which further antagonized this situation which eventually led to our eviction from an office space shared with more privileged anarchists.
So even though we were a diverse collective we still had issues in dealing with our own oppressive behaviours. I do not feel we ever adequately dealt with dealing with oppressive attitudes. I feel this has more to do with our inability to communicate clearly and effectively with each other rather then as a structural problem. Even though we were consensus based still some voices were more dominant then others. I admit my failures on this issue, it is with a heavy heart that I apologise to my comrades about my inability to check my own oppressive and authoritarian tendencies. Again prison give you time to reflect and take responsibility for your mistakes. And time presents itself with some space were one can honestly own up to their behaviour and realize that the points others were making in the collective context were valid and should be dealt with. In Islamic Sufism this is called muhasab or self-reckoning.
In terms of fighting oppression in the greater community many of us worked with the Queer liberation group “Gayshame”. We also worked with the Coalition on Homelessness, the Mission Agenda, POWER, Earth First! And other groups. As shall be seen later we challenged yuppie gentrification of black neighborhoods through our housing direct actions. Also on the housing front we had an all womyn affinity group that opened squats for other womyn and themselves.
Priviledge exists in other forms as well there is even an “anarchist” priviledge which is based on a culture of accepting only people that look or think a certain way, talk with a certain lingo. Have the right patches, the right multi-tool and the right kinda 40 ozer. It alienates the general population and has an air of intellectual superiority. Similar to this is the priviledge of having one’s health and a a failure to understand the health needs of others. One form of it’s manifestation is the bias against people with mental illnesses, an unwillingness to work with peoplt ethat have more then the normal “issues”. And an unwillingness to respect other people and deal with them directly rather then a back handed way.
The AC attempted to challenge oppression and it’s priviledges while challenging racism, homophobia, ageism, specieism, sexism, etc. we discovered we each had to challenge ourselves and each other not jus the dominant society of capitalism.



HOUSING AND FOOD
The primary focus of the AC was centered around housing, one of our arguments was that the capitalist rent system was theft. Additionally we didn’t really believe in the capitalist system of property. In San Francisco one of the greatest social issues is the price of housing a person would need to earn #32.12/hr to afford a two bedroom apartment in San Francisco. A good overview of this issue can be seen in the documentary “BOOM” available from videoactivism.org.
The AC teamed up with “homes Not Jails” to open up abandoned and unused properties. We put a great deal of effort into opening up houses as rent free squats available on the basis of “each according to their needs”. We had regular scouting operations to locate abandoned buildings and organized “away teams” to ‘infiltrate’ buildings and see if they were viable squats. We had an all womyn away team and a mixed gender away team.
Our largest squat was known as the “Mansion” a large house that was owned by the United Dominion Realty Trust a large housing corporation which inflates the rent prices of neighborhoods it moves into to maximize capitalization, it is a publicly traded company on Wall Street. The structure was located in the Fillmore District which was a black neighborhood before being gentrified for white yuppies.
The Mansion Squat became temporary home to over 40 people during it’s five month existence. Luckily it was open during the winter and not closed down by the SFPD until mid February. Everything was organized along communal lines. With food being dumpstered and shared amongst the occupants of the squat. Basically it was a small Autonomous zone with people were free to be as creative as they wanted to be (remembrances of ruin readings, poker games, friendly circles, graffitiing come to mind) and live according to their desires rather then some bosses desires.
After the squat was evicted we staged public protests with Homes Not Jails against UDRT. Three members were arrested during the Direct Action.
The Mansion squat was not the only squat that was organized by members of the AC. Smaller clandestine squats were created in other parts of the city which again allowed people to live according to their desires.
On the Housing front one of our better actions was to organize a takeover of a building slated to be turned over into luxury condos. We staged this action in coordination with Direct Action to Stop the War”. The Thorn squat action lasted but a day but generated media attention beyond our expectations. We also operated covert squats one of the better ones was the “Hotel” Squat in the Mission district which was occupied for over a year.
We did not confine ourselves to Housing only. Another part of our social program involved the desire to create a food distribution system. We teamed with the Mission Agenda and helped them with a weekly food pantry which distributed free food to the mostly Latino and Chinese residents of the Mission District. We also regularly participated in Food Not Bombs. The reliability of almost daily meals served by FNB allowed most of our members to remain fed while they pursued other organizing efforts, followed their desire or worked on creative projects from music, art, to poetry.


MUTUAL AID
One of the cornerstones of our collective was the concept of mutual aid and solidarity. Mutual Aid so aptly detailed by Kropotkin is the ability of animals to work together to achieve evolutionary growth it is contradistinction to the capitalistic notion of “survival of the fittest”. We aimed to support each others projects and when in trouble we all mobilized to get our comrades outta jail.
One of our shared resources was our communal office it served not only as an organizing center but also as a safe space for people to hang out at, which was critical for a collective comprised of squatters and street punks. Unfortunately others within our office suite objected to our usage of office space, it seemed to be fueled more by intolerance of alternative lifestyles rather then for our violating a set of arbitrarily constructed rules. Again “solidarity” has it’s limits amongst anarchist groups competing for limited resources. We also must accept our share of the blame for being overly defensive however an unwillingness of those with more priviledges to understand the issues of poor people played a large part into this conflict. But the office was a key to our mutual aid for one another, it was not only a place to make banners, mobilize jail solidarity, hold meetings, store personal belongings and food rations, it was an important point of socializing, and exchanging information.
Interestingly, although the loss of our Mansion squat and the office eviction nearly killed the collective, when we did regroup our point of mutual aid became the daily Food Not Bombs (FNB) food sharing where collective members held meetings, exchanged information and offered each other support [not to mention the daily herb sessions in front of city hall for “medicinal” reasons]. ;-)
It should be noted that without the mutual aid of groups outside of the collective, some of whom were non-profit “reformist” groups, the collective would not have been able to have survived notably the Coalition on Homelessness, the Mission Resource Center, Homes Not Jails, the National Lawyers Guild (we need more anarchist lawyers!) and FNB.
I feel that through the power of the collective and by being able to offer each other mutual aid and solidarity we showed that even though we had nothing that as long as we had each other and watched each others back we could not only survive, but thrive and also resist the capitalist system.


ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY & BIODIVERSITY
One of the areas our collective also worked on was to embrace earth liberation and animal liberation. Although there were no uniform rules like you had to be vegan, most collective members were vegeterian or freegan at least. We associated ourselves with North Coast Earth First! (NCEF!) and several collective members participated in Forest Defense action in Northern California. As well we organized against the BIO2004 conference in San Francisco and jail solidarity with Jeff Luers (See freefreenow.org), Tre Arrow and other earth/animal liberation prisoners.
This would be a good place to talk about the issue of civilization, industrialization and workerism. By and large most collective members did not believe in working for the man. Some members based this on a critique of industrialization and civilization while for others, myself included, based it on a matter of person al liberty and defying the capitalist bosses. Our collective was not ideological in the sense of being “primitivist” although we were, informed by the critique and other sources of criticism of mass industrialization. Many of our members while being for earth/animal liberation against work were also members of a labour union, the IWW. Again we discussed issues through consensus and considered ideas from many sources while each person was free to decide what their limitations where. It has been interesting, I should note, to see people that considered “vegeterianism” as a white priviledge, and started out as carnivores, become vegan African American non-fur wearing Hip Hop artists. And see holier then though white animal liberationists hand out food bags from the community food pantry with meat in them to poor people of color and not judge other people. Again on this issue there was a collective synergy that did not preclude any perspective from informing the consensus process and resulted in an integrated solution to issues.


WORKER CONTROL
Although we did not have a fully developed “work” collective part of our collective mission and goals was the “worker control of the means of production” and toward this wend we affiliated with the IWW. With whom we organized a worker controlled hiring hall. How this worked was that we approached different groups for jobs to be assigned via the hiring hall. Our largest employer was the Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) where we were hired to assist in administrative organizing work.
It may seem odd to have a collective that fealt at ease with deep ecology even proto-primitivist leanings also talk about worker control and be affiliated with the IWW. Perhaps a collective that could be an Earth First! Chapter and a NEFAC supporter, in theory, could show how an integrative approach can lead to creative resolutions to the challenges we face as social revolutionaries. For some this will not be an option with their hardline views on the difference between red versus green anarchism, however, maybe for many of us a new pseudo hyphenation can symbolize the integrative approach within anarchism by calling ourselves eco-anarcho-communists (not my creation, heard it in several conversations). And further and larger maybe an anti-authoritarians of both anarchist and Marxist and other ideologies could come together under the symbology of Libertarian Socialism?


DIRECT ACTION
The Ac believed in intervening in an active way against what we deemed to be oppressive. Our actions were non-violent in nature and engaged in both civil disobedience and in direct action which went beyond symbolic acts to direct empowerment such as our clandestine actions, for example squatting. IN terms of the debate, which continues to be argued under a capitalist influenced paradigm on property rights, regarding property destruction, you cannot destroy that which you do not believe in, we do not believe in the Capitalist concept of property. One of the main concerns in our direct actions was the preservation of live and not to cause undue harm to innocents. I would say our main focus was actually to save lives and empower people against the oppressive nature of the dominant economic system based on capitalization rather then empowerment. Additionally we viewed our lifestyles as a political statement as well and each of us engaged in our own autonomous direct actions against oppression. Which we supported via mutual aid to each other.
Some of the public actions we organized were a couple of housing takeovers, forest defense actions and a takeover of the mayor’s office. All of these actions were conducted with other groups for instance Homes Not Jails, Earth First!, the Coalition on Homelessness. For the queer members of the collective we were active in direct actions with Gayshame a queer liberation and anti-capitalist group that had members gay bashed by the SFPD in front of the local LGBTQ center. For the anti-war members we participated in direct actions with Direct Action to Stop the War. No matter what the issue we fought the issue primarily via the means of Direct Action. In our theory direct action was the best means to “get the goods” or bring attention to issues. We believed that by being autonomous from dependence on the established system we would be able to engage the system on our terms. Although it is nearly impossible to engage the system on our own terms from prison. Which when in prison highlights the necessity of having very strong support networks to carry on the work we would like to have done when incarcerated.


COLLECTIVE STRUCTURE
The Autonomous Collective was a consensus based group. We held regular meeting open to the public. We also had small working groups which focus on such things as Housing, Food, etc. We also had a dues system ($5/month per member) administered by the elected collective treasurer. Only collective members could block a decision of the collective meetings. We were largely public and transparent about our business, even though much of our business involved direct action. For legal reasons clandestine activities were dealt with at the affinity group level. Our meeting were open to anyone that wanted to attend them, including their participation aside from blocking issues.


REFLECTIONS ON COLLECTIVIZATION
Perhaps the term collectivization has lost a lot of it’s meaning due to the negative implications associated with it due to the abuses of the Communist dictatorships that came to being form the aberration of the Bolsheviks and other authoritarian socialist dictatorships, another term that has come under the same derisive usage is the soviet. Both the soviet and the collective were intended as libertarian ideas. How easy it is to talk libertarian terms and distort their meaning we even now fight wars of imperialist conquest in the name of “freedom and democracy”. I believe that the term collective needs to be de-polarized as it is simply a reference to engaging in mutual aid rather then survival of the fittest. As the Bible says, “we are our brothers and sisters ally”. Collectives exist in churches, temples, football fields, factories, fire departments and just about in every aspect of human civilization because to engage in mutual aid is a human activity, common to all humans. It is only under capitalist influence that collectivization has been vilified because when all work together there can be no capitalist exploiter who can reap profits from market capitalization on goods and services. In fact, even in mainstream society those that engage in capitalization during times of communal duress when collective mutual aid is most adhered to are labeled “profiteers” and it’s negative connotation. Clearly, in all levels of our society there is an underlying understanding of the need for collectivization no matter what the ideological identity of the human beings in a given community, collectivization does exist and as such so to does a proto anti-capitalism, based on the genetic necessity of mutual aid. Perhaps, we are too quick to lay ideological claims to the notion of collectives without appreciating it as a common human activity driven by a common human desire and need for each other, we are social mammals.
Although this common human existence gives us collective mutual aid we live in a confusing dual state in modern western industrialized nations. On one hand we have the collective value system but ar raised in a capitalist system which teaches us to be producer-consumers and engage in capitalist individualist behaviours based on the idea of “survival of the fittest”, or social Darwinism, which has nothing to do with Darwin’s teachings on evolution. Added to this are the constant mixed messages of mass corporate media campaigns which flip the meanings of communal symbols, such as a flag, counterimposed with the ideological concepts of individualist capitalism. The modern mass communications infrastructure gives each member of the community constant confusing stimuli, we are to stick together while at the same time beating each other down to be the king of the hill.
Even deeply divided ideological battles for instance pro-live vs. pro-choice exhibits how the same need for collective well being is the first priority, with each arguing they are protecting live (Pro-Life: “life of the unborn”; Pro-Choice: “life of the mother”). Yet, we have not had the ability to see past that which divides us because it is ingrained into us to have brand loyalty, a corporate marketing term. I heard a conservative Christian say, “They [leftists] care more about threes then they do human life”. This statement clearly delineates our lack of transcending our political brand, although it may simply be scientific ignorance that the natural environment is necessary for all life. Any pro-life radical environmentalist disproves his understanding of the false divisions we live in. Another good example is the Earth Firster that is also a hunter basing their criticism on mass industrialized farming rather then a hard line view of animal rights. We must see through the shallow branding that we are ingrained with and look deeper into issues if we are to have an integrative approach to revolutionary change.
Yet we are daily under the hypnotic spell of mass marketing that is driven by the un-natural and de-humanizing institutions of capitalism which seek to undermine mutual aid and collective well being. While most leftists may be against religion the disappearance of religious consciousness is a large reason for the disappearance of collective thinking since collectivization was propagated by the values instilled in the Sunday Mass or the Temple. We are socially engineered into being producer-consumers to be dependent on the elite owners of wealth and their products while we ourselves are just another product engineered by mass industrialization and programmed to reject the natural human existence of our being and its need for others. We are conditioned to choose our political brand and to only buy that brand. We are conditioned to ridicule new ideas just as we are conditioned to have product loyalty and to only buy one brand of product.
We live in a capitalist, industrialized and de-naturalized (sanitized) society. Even if you are a radicalized anarchist you are still effected by this social engineering which floods our environment from cradle to grave. Thus we constantly invent our own brands, our own labels to demarcate ourselves from others. There is a difference between creative self-expression and inventing a new brand that delineates our market footprint, even if that market is the anarchist subculture. We must find integrative and transcendant means to allow us to practice our natural human need for each other. If we are to have a revolutionary change to a libertarian socialist society based on organic naturalism then we must be able to build it with others and not create false delineations which only divide us. We are going to have to challenge ourselves and each other and openly deal with each other as equals. We will also have to be aware that we come to libertarian socialism from different sources, some from hyphen anarchism, some from Marxism, even some from religious understandings, and even some from no ideology whatsoever—intuition is a source of knowledge.
I believe that the first step in creating a libertarian socialist society begins with the formation of small working collectives. The AC was one attempt at forming a seed of resistance to capitalism. I believe we were more then just a collective by name, that we worked collectively to assure our mutual well being and actively resisted, agitated and changed the local capitalist order in our community. We had victories, we made mistakes, but we were vital and a active organize project which did give us hope for a better life and world. We loved, argued, disagreed, partied, jailed, protested, lived, cherished, annoyed, supported each other and we all grew as beings from it.
I hope that others will continue to organize for revolutionary change and be open to each other and move forward. Life is too short not to go for everything you desire and if you desire revolution then let your life be about your desires.



Author: Salim is a eco-defender and all around good guy, although misunderstood by many :-). He is currently fighting deportation from Canada and spends his time defending himself from investigations by the Joint Task Force on Terrorism and the FBI. He just spent the last three months in prison in Quebec for violating the sanctity of the border and immigration violations, thanks to the US Border Patrol. Hey, every heard that No One is Illegal? If you would like to support him, please paypal some funds to autonomous [at] mutualaid.org. He is struggling to pay his lawyer and obtain food without any legal status in the country he is in at the moment. He is also learning French.